On Saturday, Donald Trump said at a rally in Ohio that if he is not elected in November, there will be a massacre.

That he said a lot is true. Actually have read the text of his commentsHowever, I don’t believe he threatened: elect me president or the streets will be red with blood.

But that is exactly how many, especially in the media, interpreted his comment. During the campaign rally in Ohio, Trump says there will be a bloodbath if he loses the November election, according to a CBS News headline. Trump says the country faces a bloodbath if Biden wins in November, Politico announced.

In context, however, two things are quite clear. First, Trump meant that President Biden’s re-election would be a catastrophe or a bloodbath for the auto industry. Second, his comments were a typically incoherent mess.

Trump defenders rightly note that the term massacre is often used metaphorically. It is common in coverage of Wall Street (five tech stocks that survived the NASDAQ massacre this year) and Trump’s recent purge of the Republican National Committee staff has much of the media now baffled by Trump’s use of the word as a massacre.

What Trump’s defenders leave out is that the former president has forfeited any suspicion of good intentions. Trump constantly nods to violence and even celebrates it. He fawns over authoritarians and insists that presidents, like rogue police officers, should have complete immunity to commit crimes. When the Capitol was besieged by a mob acting on his behalf, he refused to intervene for hours. He even defended the crowd’s chants of Hang Mike Pence!

Heck, Trump again celebrated those great patriots of January 6 at the same rally Saturday, declaring those convicted of assault and other crimes hostages. If these convicted criminals are hostages, where are the ransom demands?

In short, Trump, who routinely distorts the statements of others and insists on violence, does not deserve the benefit of the doubt when he uses terms like massacre.

But as Clint Eastwood’s character says in Unforgiven: Deserves has nothing to do with it.

Where I disagree with both Trump’s defenders and many media critics in this brouhaha is that I don’t think the press is dishonest in interpreting Trump’s use of the word. As evidenced by the absurd media frenzy in 2011 over whether Sarah Palin’s crosshairs on a congressional map invited a lunatic to shoot the then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, journalists are often desperate for confirmation of their sincere views.

And elected Democrats are often eager to egg them on. Lead Writers: Don’t outsmart yourself, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) tweeted Saturday evening. Just do what Trump promises carnage if he doesn’t win an election. Many were obliged.

I think those who see Trump as a unique threat to democracy, norms, decency, etc., have some good arguments and evidence to support their beliefs. But if that’s what journalists believe, they have all the more reason not to surrender to the media’s narrative. It may seem counterintuitive, but members of the Trump-hating press would help their own cause by being more restrained in their reporting. (And while I could make an idealistic plea for more responsible reporting, I suspect that appealing to the media’s more cynical impulse to advance their personal beliefs has more power.)

Trump is actually benefiting enormously from the media’s overreaction to his irresponsible rhetoric. The people who immediately believe that Trump threatened a massacre have already decided to vote against him (or in some cases, for him). These are not the people who can be convinced one way or another, the people who will decide the elections.

Every time the media exaggerates or misleads a specific story, it presents an opportunity for Trump and his followers

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Praetorian

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Beware of claiming that the media exaggerates or misleads

every story.

This has been the go-to strategy for Trumpworld ever since the Russian collusion story. And it worked.

Most persuadable voters hate both Trump and Biden. If the goal is to convince these so-called double-haters to vote against Trump or for Biden, the media should avoid Trump. We live in a time where claiming to be a victim of the media is a badge of honor. And no one in American politics is better at playing the martyr than Trump.

Many in the press still seem to believe that they can impose their views on Trump and the world in general by simply stating them. And yet this approach has been counterproductive for decades.

It is not that Trump will no longer do or say things that warrant outrage. So why not wait for those moments?

@JonaDispatch